Messages - pappahood

NEWS: Sunni recently, early reports have indicated, told students that neither she nor any of the other incompetents (well, i guess they prefer to be called "staff") filled out the USNWR and therefore students should brace themselves for a drop in the rankings.

Now, my disclaimer here is that I have received via a few independent sources, yet nothing is set in stone yet. Moreover, even if they did forget to fill out the survey, USNWR might not drop them in the ranking. Rather they may be omitted. Either way, I'm tossing this out there for potential matriculates to discover BEFORE they, well, matriculate.

WHY WORRY? Because i got screwed by the same thing when i first attended. UMKC was 99th on the law school rankings and I thought that being T100 was far better than 3rd Tier (somewhat true). Yet, when I started there in the fall, UMKC had fallen off the table and was 3rd Tier. Something to think about for all you ppl who have acceptance letters in your hands...

WHY DO YOU CARE1) Because employers do. Why the hell does anyone ever do law review? It sure isn't for the fun of cite checking and bluebooking now isn't it?

2) Its gonna sting for years to come. When a school drops significanlty in the rankings, that hurts the next years applications and acts as a deterrent for both potential applicants and potential matriculates (i.e. ppl choosing b/w UMKC and other schools). This all, in turn, will decrease selectivity and other factors that the USNWR looks at when ranking schools every year. In other words, it can start a cyclical downward cycle that sucks the school permanently downward in the rankings and, most importantly, in employer's eyes.

3) It just simply reflects on the sheer incompetency of the administration running the school. How difficult is it to fill out a survey? Even more so when you realize that MANY STUDENTS BASE THEIR CHOICE OF SCHOOL ALMOST PRIMARILY ON THE USNWR RANKING OF THAT SCHOOL. Thats not to say that school visits, atmosphere, and locale don't play a large role too. But i'd posit that the largest factor is often the ranking. I'd go to Univ. of MN over Univ. HI any day ...

4) There is no four. I'm tired.

As always, I'll leave myself open for any hatemail you want to bring. Or any questions you may have about UMKC or law school in general. This time, however, I'll be using umkcsucks@gmail.com for you to directly contact me.

all i can say is: balls deep. j/k. depends on the prof. just don't waste time on issues and tiny facts that are unimportant. easier said than done, i know, but its a skill that has to be learned on your own.

i sincerely hope that this discussion will be read by some prospective 1L who changes his mind and choses not to go to UMKC (so honestly it doesn't matter if this is a dead thread). Like I said, I attended there and this Jumboshrimps is a prime example of one who drinks the law school cult kool aid in order to delude himself from the realities of the school. At UMKC he's in good company.

The most important thing about law school (in my opinion) is about being able to get the hell out, graduate, and get a job. The cold hard facts are that only 20 or so people even got interviews after 1L and its safe to say that the vast majority of the 1L got no job whatsoever. A friend of mine was top 5% and all he was able to get was a part time unpaid internship.

Consider yourself forewarned if you want to go to UMKC after reading and evaluating all the statements posted here. If you want to convince yourself that you're sure to get a job and you'll be a happy well adjusted person by going to UMKC, thats fine. Just pass the Kool Aid and smile vacantly.

EDIT: I've actually figured out who Jumboshrimps is. Of course, I won't say the name, but sadly our paths have crossed and he is actually a very bright individual who did well at law school. Unfortunately, he's been sucked into the umkc delusion. even more so, b/c he never dealt with the significant problems faced by those who are not in the very top of the class and on law review/journal. i was too was not affected either, but i was wise enough to understand my environment. Anyway, I do hope jumboshrimps continues on doing well.

EDIT2: I just interviewed with a BIGLAW partner who was on the board of trustees for UMKC Law and he asked me why I left. I tried to come up with a PC answer, but he cut me off and just laughed and said, "I'm very well aware of [New Top Tier School]'s reputation and I understand the logic in transfering. I was just putting you on the spot for a little fun."

john marshal isn't a very good school and getting a job in chicago is going to be relatively difficult compared to other schools competing in the city. on the other hand, i spoke with an attorney who graduated from Depaul and he said that the job placement for their students was pretty good.

while this would definitely militate transfering, you have to consider what might happen to your class rank if you left. since you are only top 1/3 at a T4 school, what would happen if you went up to a T2 school? I'm not saying you'll be top or bottom, you have to figure that out yourself. if you think you can maintain that class rank, by all means go. but if you think you may end up in the bottom 1/3 of the class, maybe staying put and increasing your class rank at a lower tiered school may, in fact, be more beneficial.

i'll be nice to the 0L. Hornbooks are totally useless unless you're doing advanced research in a legal topic area. You don't use them in class and teachers barely even refer to them, if they do at all. My inexperienced contracts prof refered to it repeatedly, but thats because you needed to look it up, its because she was an idiot. Likewise, the most anal retentive and lost students resort to them. These kids usually end up at the bottom of the class.

If you are that anal retentive kid, still don't buy it. It's more likely than not in your law school's library and nobody will be using it.

eh, its school specific. at my school i joined b/c that equaled free beer at parties. i basically drank back my investment and then some. our SBA benefited all the students regardless of whether the plunked any money down.

its very dependent upon your teaching. i know that sounds like a terrible and vague answer, but you should get used to that in law school.

i personally tried Gilberts and Examples and Explanations. The gilberts was okay, but contained way too much material that wasn't covered by my class. i ended up using it very little. however, i knew many students who only used that and did fine too.

my personal recommendation is the examples and explanations series, if it meshes with your profs style. i found it extremely helpful in more technical classes, like contracts and property, and less helpful in more "subjective" classes such as torts and con law.

um i call bull on everyone. you're talking about a T4 school that only has 7 firms interview on campus (http://www.nalpdirectory.com/dledir_search_advanced.asp). the reason that it has harvard profs is not indicative of how great of a school it is, but rather the fact that it is nearly impossible to get a professorship and you need to be a HYS grad to get one (or have tons of experience).

i'd like to point out right away that only 50% of the class is working in a field where a JD is required. considering that you are required to have a JD to be a practicing lawyer, its safe to say that approximately half of these people are not working as attorneys.

the average salary is 58K, which is reasonably good. but for cities like boston and others in the NE, thats actually not very much. in fact, again, only 7 law firms are listed as even visiting campus to interview. now of course, that doesn't mean they even actually hire you, but at least they spent some time visiting. an example of this type of firm would be Skadden Arps. I'd be willing to bet that they only hire the number 1 kid in the school, who was editor of the LR, and cured cancer. its a notoriously picky firm. you should look up these firms and search for how many attorneys there actually went to WNEC, i think you'll be very disappointed.

For example, for Skadden (sorry to say) it appears they only hired one person from NWEC and he graduated over 20 yrs ago. Also, Robinson & Cole, a firm of over 200 lawyers, only has eight WNEC grads on staff. Most of them were on the law review and graduated with honors, but also most of them were hired a decade ago. In fact, the latest grad of WNEC to get hired by Robinson was three years ago, and he graduated magna cum laude and was on the law review (i.e. the very top of the class). Needless to say, those very few firms who actually do care enough about the school to come on campus are most likely only to hire a very few number of graduates. Do you think you're lucky enough to be one of the maybe 10 people who gets a firm job?

also, the range of salaries went all the way down to 20K starting. in fact 16% of grads got a job paying less than 30K. another 10% of the class doesn't even work in any kind of legal job. and another 10% has NO JOB OF ANY KIND. all this accounts for 1/3 of the class.

i still don't believe the 1/2 million dollar starting salary. maybe its true, maybe its not. but i'm not buying it just yet. if that's true, maybe you should take it into account if your're alread a medical doctor when you enter law school (i'm mean, b/c you are aren't you?).

i don't think you should diregard the opinion of a practicing lawyer who has been in on a the hiring committee. i doubt any of you are in a better position to determine the job prospects than somebody already working at a firm and participating in their recruitment effort.

like i said, i call bull. if you're planning on attending this fall. DON"T! you cant still get all your tuition back. go pursue a more fitting calling.